Forever Fleeting: Blood and Lust
by Alley Cat Sunflower
Summary: AU. For all her efforts to save him, Chihiro never intended to end up on Okita's route. Unfortunately, her mixed messages come at a cost… but whether the price is his or hers to pay remains to be seen. A bit of an experiment—an excerpt from a much larger and as yet unpublished project (extended explanation within). M for language and suggestive themes. I do not own Hakuōki.
_This story will make very little sense without a small amount of exposition. Here's hoping I can keep it brief…_

 _I've been transcribing, combining, and modifying scenes from "Hakuōki: Stories of the Shinsengumi" for weeks now as part of a larger project, and this was my first attempt to convert one of my scripts into prose. The larger story is a self-insert oriented around the idea of being transported into the world of Hakuōki (as in oh-so-many other stories), but with a twist: I end up there with a friend, and we appear as twin Chizurus. Since it'd be too confusing for both of us to have the same name and appearance, I instead take the name "Chihiro", and we settle into the role of sisters._

 _I won't get too far into the overarching plot since not much of it is relevant and/or easily explained for the purpose of reading this scene, but the gist of it is that Chizuru and Chihiro are trying to find a way to save everyone by using their foreknowledge. The problem is, the more of the plot they change, the more the future goes off-track; by the beginning of this excerpt, the routes have all effectively combined._

 _The extent of the context that I am able to explain is that Chihiro has spent some time in Kazama's custody, and that she is now traveling alone with Okita, Saito, and Hijikata_ _—all of whom are furies._ _Though much of this situation is original due to the aforementioned route integration, if parts of it seem familiar, I did draw some dialogue and action from Okita's seventh "Memories of Love". And now, w_ _ithout further ado, here's the excerpt:_

* * *

Long after Kaoru disappeared into the underbrush, his quiet words still seemed to echo through the forest: _Do you think for a moment that any of these men would let you stay with them if they didn't need you to feed them?_ he taunted in my mind's eye, his cruel smile like a crescent moon. _And do you think Kazama ever saw you as more than a potential mother to his children?_

A motion in my peripheral vision distracted me, and I glanced over at Okita; he caught my eye and opened his mouth to speak—but then his body twisted violently, and he fell to his knees with a pitiful moan. I stared at him, my heart almost stopping in the split second before I realized it was the bloodlust; no matter how many times I witnessed it, I could never suppress that initial jolt of panic.

"Okita!" I cried, rushing toward him, and reached frantically for my knife… only to find that I'd left it back in camp. (Of course.) But Okita didn't seem to notice its absence; as I looked up again, I found him turning his face away from me, grimacing. "Your body needs blood," I insisted, kneeling next to him desperately as my voice cracked, but he shook his head jerkily.

"No," groaned Okita, squeezing his eyes shut, and my heart throbbed frantically in fear. If I knew one thing, I knew that forcing him to endure this would not end well, quite literally. "You're more than that," he added, his eyes watering in pain as he opened them to look over at me.

Despite my overwhelming concern, I struggled not to roll my eyes. Trying to prove that I was more to them than a source of sustenance might have been reassuring in a less dire situation, but for the time being, it was crucial that he get some blood in his system. Boycotting me would get him nowhere; from what I could tell, the quickest way to convince him of that was a lie… or at least, a partial lie.

"I—I don't care what any of you really think of me," I told him, but I couldn't meet his gaze for too long after I said it; he must have known I wasn't telling the truth, but I kept talking anyway. "I'm here for you, whether any of you like me or not, so I might as well be useful," I added, gesturing toward myself—hoping that if I moved my hands, I could disguise their tremors. "Go ahead! Cut me open! Drink me dry! I don't care!"

Okita's only response at first was to look me up and down with dull shock and perhaps a little frustration in his eyes; after a moment of disbelieving silence, he approached me on his knees as if wading through something thick and sticky. When I didn't move at first, he prodded my shoulder gently, following me as I hastily scrambled back until I found myself leaning against a tree for support.

"Close your eyes," Okita told me, and I frowned. " _Do_ it," he added, more urgently, leveling his fierce and fiery gaze right at me; reluctantly, as if compelled by that intangible force, I obeyed. It had become routine for me to cut myself open… but that was because I had complete control over the situation. If I let someone else do it, and if I wasn't allowed to watch, then I wouldn't know when or where to expect the wound.

I took a deep breath as I heard his sword slide out of its scabbard—and then, almost immediately afterwards, something sharp pressed momentarily against my lips. I gasped more in shock than pain, my eyes flying open again automatically; Okita had already thrown his sword aside by the time I did so, but the sting I felt as I grimaced told me I hadn't imagined that feeling.

Sure enough, as I lifted my shaking hand to my mouth, my fingers came away red, and I stared at them. It seemed a colossal effort even to think; my thoughts seemed sluggish, but I could sense a profound unrest in my heart, beating ever faster as if to burst out of my chest. At no point in the plot was this supposed to happen, not even on Okita's route; I shouldn't have been surprised about that at this point, but—

"Just hold still," breathed Okita, almost begging, his voice ragged and dry from thirst: I started, as much at his tone as his words, but had barely had time to glance back up at him before his lips met mine. Pushed back against the tree trunk, I inhaled sharply, almost sniffling; tears pricked at my eyes, provoked not by pain but by shock.

Disjointed observations forced their way to the forefront of my consciousness, fragmented realizations jostling for consideration: the soft insistence of his lips and tongue on mine as he sucked away my lifeblood; the hazy and answerless question (as I moved my mouth in automatic reciprocation) as to whether I was afraid; the bitter thought that this hardly felt like a kiss, even by the standards I had come to accept from Kazama… and, though my heart twinged in lingering uncertainty, the recognition that this was _wrong_.

Thankfully, it wasn't much longer before the cuts on my lips finally closed; but he hadn't gotten enough. Out of apprehension that he would take up his sword and repeat the process, I held up my trembling fingers—offering him the last remaining drops. Something dark flashed across his face too quickly for me to see, and he took my wrist, raising my hand closer to his mouth as if to admire the streaks of scarlet.

After a small pause, his eyes half-closed in something like savage satisfaction, and he opened his mouth to lick the last of my blood slowly off with velvet tongue—glancing aside to meet my stare with lazy impudence. I shivered automatically, my eyes widening at the sensation; even if Hijikata and Saito had both drunk from similarly sensual places, they'd never been so deliberately seductive about it.

The shock had suppressed my blush until now, but as I realized the full implications of the situation, I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. My every sense heightened to a nigh unbearable pitch, and I found that I couldn't hold that smoldering gaze any longer; I squeezed my eyes shut, squirming slightly in discomfort—but something stronger than Okita's grasp stopped me from snatching back my hand. What was he _doing_ to me…?

By the time he finally released me, the bloodlust had ebbed away… and, when I dared to open my eyes again (rubbing my sore wrist), I realized with a jolt that Okita was watching me intently, his eyes burning green. "Are you trying to shut me out?" he asked, his voice low and taut and heavy with a cocktail of intense emotions, but I couldn't read his expression; the light may have begun to fade from the world, but I still noticed his every feature in alarming detail. Why, then, could I not understand the meaning behind his stare?

It seemed as though Okita was looking _through_ me, searching for something nameless… but a convulsive swallow brought me out of my thoughts again—my body reminding my mind that though it may be able to drift elsewhere, the rest of me had no such escape. "I—I don't…" I began, but my voice trailed off into a breathy sigh. Even if the world seemed to be moving in slow motion, everything had happened far too quickly for me to process anything that had just happened, let alone how I felt about it.

"If anyone else ever tells you you're just a bag of blood to us, I'll cut them open and show them they're not much more," sighed Okita, and I frowned in confusion before I realized he must be talking about Kaoru's parting blow. "Don't you _dare_ tell me you don't care what we think of you, because a blind man could see you do," he added, almost aggressively. "And if you're worried we don't like you, well… I haven't killed you yet, have I?"

Okita hesitated as though about to say something else… but instead, he simply stared at me, his eyes snagging on my mouth again. My heart pounded faster under his deliberating gaze, and I felt myself turn redder still; there was some sort of spark deep in his eyes, and once I noticed it, I couldn't look away—no matter how much I wanted to.

I don't know when I realized that I had stopped breathing, but it took all my strength to take air back into my lungs; my heart pulsed slowly in my ears, my entire body trembling with the force of every beat, and I struggled to discern the emotion hidden deep in its chambers. Much to my momentary relief, the only fear I felt had been diluted into apprehension and anxiety… but was that _anticipation_ …? No, it couldn't be; much as I wanted to save him, I had never sought his route…

Eventually, Okita let out a light sigh, stirring my hair; when he spoke again, his gaze had not left my face, but his voice had lowered to a murmur—soft, but not quite gentle: "Chihiro… if I said I wanted to kiss you again, would you let me do it?"

My eyes widened, and I felt my lips part slightly in astonishment, but nothing came out. My thoughts seemed to be even more jumbled than usual… but more alarmingly than the usual chaos, the word 'no' had crossed neither my mind nor my mouth even several seconds after his shockingly genuine question. I knew the importance of phrasing in a plot as convoluted as this, but I no longer had any framework upon which to base my decisions.

Still Okita's expectant stare scorched me like cool green fire: I had to say _something_ , or he'd never look away. "W-well… I… I guess it depends on the situation!" I stammered, the words bursting out of me in a frantic flood—anything to give myself more time to think. Having asked a question like that out of the blue, Okita couldn't honestly expect me to have an answer already, right…?

Wrong. His eyes turned flinty, and I flinched even before he spoke: "Like what?" he demanded, unrelenting and unforgiving, and crouched like a gargoyle before me. "Don't tell me you've never kissed anyone before that, after all the time you've spent with Kazama." He practically spat the demon's name, and I swallowed nervously, blinking rapidly. Of course I'd kissed him before, but…

"N-no, I…" made its winding way out of my mouth, but I trailed off again; if I couldn't articulate my thoughts effectively even to myself, I could hardly hope to explain them to someone so closely entangled in my emotions. I glanced away again, unable to meet Okita's steadfast gaze any longer, but could not find the words to ask him to leave. To my alarm, I wasn't actually sure I _wanted_ him to go.

I told myself it was because I wanted to straighten all this out, and I told myself that I needed his help to do so… but all I heard myself say was that I needed him to stay. Why, and in what way, I wasn't sure—and what terrified me most of all was the part of me that said I didn't care, because I knew that was a lie as surely as Okita.

Maybe he was waiting in vain for me to finish my half-formed thought, but there was an extremely long silence before he finally let out a long sigh. He was still close enough for me to feel his breath brush past my face, and he showed no intention of moving elsewhere: I couldn't tell whether I was more unnerved or comforted by the notion. "So what's the right situation, then?" prompted Okita, raising his eyebrows. "I need to know."

As the barest hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, I flushed again, and what little composure I had crumbled. "U-um, well… W-well, I…!" I began valiantly, but stumbled over my words—and then, as his half-smile widened slightly, realized that he was _toying_ with me. Ordinarily, I'd have been outraged, but I was too disconcerted to do much more than stutter nonsensical accusations.

Okita cut me off with a quiet laugh, shaking his head. "Look, I admire your tenacity," he told me frankly, "but you don't have the guts to follow through on it." If his eyes and voice hadn't softened, I might have been frightened at his words; as it was, I heard only a challenge, and resolved to exceed his expectations. I had to stand up for myself, regardless of whether I wanted him to stay or not; it was his happiness or mine, and if I indulged him, it would destroy me as surely as it would please him. Even if my body thought it could handle Okita, my heart and soul could not, and deep down, I knew that.

I opened my mouth to try and tell him to leave me alone, but only a noise sound a bit like a whimper escaped; Okita shifted slightly, smugly, smiling outright now. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked, tilting his head, a playful gleam in his eyes. "You don't give me a choice…"

Even as he spoke, he reached out and grabbed my arm in one hand, clasping my wrist in the other: I twisted automatically, but he held tight, and my eyes widened. "W-wait…!" I gasped, second thoughts surfacing like bubbles in liquor—but Okita only grinned.

"Hey, be quiet," he told me, his eyes widening slightly… but he made no effort to keep me from calling for help; that small comfort, more than anything else he could have done, convinced me that he didn't mean me any lasting harm. I made a desperate attempt to calm my breathing; _act like Amagiri_ , I told myself. This was only a battle of a different kind.

"Wh-what are you doing?" I managed, looking Okita full in the face with considerable difficulty; though I tried to inject fear into my voice so that he would let me go, I sounded more curious to my own ears… or even a little bit excited. _Damn_ it; when would I learn to master myself? It didn't matter how attractive he was; I knew I could never love him—or rather, if I did, that I'd have too many regrets to be satisfied for long.

Perhaps Okita sensed the direction in which my thoughts tended, because the sportive edge to his voice and expression vanished at my words, and it took some time before he responded. "I think I'm just going to end up being a lot of trouble for you," he murmured eventually, with honest and sudden sorrow in his eyes, "but I still can't bring myself to let you go. I know I'm probably going to hurt you," he added, his voice becoming a sigh and finally a whisper, "but I can't give you up."

My eyes widened and my heart skipped a beat; I opened my mouth to ask something, but forgot what it was almost instantly: Okita moved in again before I could say anything, and my breath hitched at the force of his passion. This was a kiss unlike any of the more gradual, experimental moments I had shared with Kazama; there was something about this unrefined, indelicate desire for me that set my pulse pounding—or perhaps that was the forgotten terror of no escape.

By the time I convinced myself to push Okita back by the shoulder, both of us were panting, our breaths mingling together hotly: even before my eyes fluttered open, I could tell that he was practically on top of me, judging from the heat of his body mere inches from mine. He had positioned one of his legs carefully between my own as he leaned over me; I had slipped down the tree trunk at some point, so that I almost lay on the ground…

An unspoken possibility shivered between us like the sweet summer air, but my throat tightened at the realization of what Okita might ask for next: it wasn't supposed to happen like this. My heart ached at the idea of saying no after a moment like that, and my very body cried out for his caress… but I mustered the strength to shake my head, my eyes welling up with tears I couldn't trace: was it for him or myself that I cried?

"I… I can't," I told Okita, my voice breaking, and could look at him no longer. How could I tell him such a thing after sharing a moment like that? "I—I'm sorry," I added inadequately. Okita's eyes flashed; he had not let go of my shoulder, and pushed me more roughly against the tree: I gasped, the image of Kazama's expression as he pinned me on the table filling my vision, and I blinked several times to dispel it. (Even if it had come to nothing in the end, the possibility of violation had been just as real then as it was now, if a little less enticing.)

"Tell me why," insisted Okita, and there was such honest hurt and confusion in his voice that my tears overflowed at the similarity to my own dissonant emotions—but I had not the power to explain myself. Too much of me liked what Okita was doing for me to tell him to stop altogether, but it was beginning to look like the only word that might make him listen… if I could only convince myself to speak it.

Okita interrupted my thoughts, his voice barely more than a breath. "I'm going to keep on kissing you till you tell me why," he growled; but I could tell that his eyes were only so hard to suppress his tears, and that he was only gripping me so tightly to prevent his fingers from trembling. It broke my heart to see him so upset, and I shook my head once more—but I couldn't get the words out in time before he closed the small gap between us as hungrily as if he'd gotten the bloodlust all over again.

So deep and intimate and utterly heartbreaking was his kiss that I could barely breathe; I sensed a bittersweet finality and desperation to it, as though he already knew the answer to his questions—as though he was trying to soak in as much of me as possible before he had to give me up, as he had said he could not do. His entire body pressed against me as he slid a hand to my back to draw me closer still; I automatically shifted to accommodate him, resting my hands on his chest, restlessly tracing the embroidery on his vest. My tears refused to stop, but I had no idea what I should do, or even what I _could_ do—

" _SOUJI_!"

I didn't realize I'd closed my eyes until they flew open at the sudden roar from behind us; I jumped, my helpless yelp muffled by Okita's mouth. Equally startled, he inhaled sharply, and pulled away just enough to lean his forehead against mine as we caught our breath once more. He may not have been in much of a hurry to address whomever had found us, but so scattered were my thoughts that I had not recognized the voice.

My eyes slid past Okita to find Hijikata standing some distance away, his sword drawn and pointed at the captain's back; I was confused at his animosity for a moment until I realized exactly how bad the situation looked: Okita had clearly backed me against a tree, and I was crying; though I could feel my blush lingering on my face, I obviously didn't look happy enough for him to believe it was consensual.

It was true that I hadn't wanted any _more_ than what Okita had given me, but I could have stopped it if I'd just been able to say no; I didn't want him to be punished for my mixed messages, especially after all he'd been through already. My rejection would be punishment enough… but the commander, of course, thought otherwise.

Okita finally knelt next to me and glared defiantly back at him as Hijikata spoke, his voice soft and deadly serious as he stared him down: "What. The fuck. Are you doing," he growled, his voice shaking with suppressed anger. Since Okita didn't seem noticeably fazed, I shuddered on his behalf, unable to suppress a sob-like gasp any longer—and then clapped my hands over my mouth, eyes widening in fear that I would somehow make the situation worse.

Hijikata's eyes flicked to me, softening in fleeting concern, before they slid back to Okita. "Explain. _Now_ ," he ordered. Despite his persistent glower, Okita didn't seem to have a ready rebuttal, though he opened his mouth as if to make one: it took several silent seconds before he had gathered his thoughts enough to speak… and when he did, his words astonished me.

"Don't start acting like you give a fuck about Chihiro all of a sudden," snarled Okita; my eyes widened. "You couldn't care less! You didn't send Hajime and me after her because we swore to protect her, or anything like that," he snapped. "You did it because she's a _demon_ , and you wanted to use her before the enemy could—and now you just treat her like an inconvenience at best!"

Clenching his fists, Okita got to his feet; there was a strange grace and dignity to his movements, as if he fought for the noblest cause imaginable, and I shivered. "You're no better than Sanan," he spat, his voice rising to a furious shout. "You drink her blood, same as we do, but you never show her she's more to you than that. She may be your page, but she doesn't have to do a damn thing for you! She's a _girl_ , not a soldier like the rest of us!"

Gritting his teeth, he stopped speaking as if someone had closed a hand over his throat, and glared at Hijikata with such unbridled ferocity that I was astonished he didn't turn fury. I could only blink, another few tears escaping; Kaoru's words had clearly gotten to Okita much more than me.

Hijikata's voice was so low in his throat it sounded bestial, rage flashing in his eyes like the sunset off his blade. "Souji, the blood you've been drinking—did _any_ of it go to your head?" he demanded. "You tell me I'm using her for her blood, and then you turn around and use her for her body?! Yeah, she's a girl, not a soldier. If you see that, and you _still_ decided to take out your frustrations on her, then you're even more of a son of a bitch than I thought!"

Okita gave a short and humorless laugh even before Hijikata finished speaking, and my breath caught; at this point, neither he nor I could offer any kind of argument or even explanation without making matters exponentially worse. "What are you gonna do about it?" he challenged, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows insolently. "If you decide I should cut myself open, or take the Water of Life, I got news for you…"

A muscle in Hijikata's jaw twitched, and he took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself… but even that positively rattled with strangled anger. " _No_ ," he decided eventually, through clenched teeth, and stared up at the darkening sky. "Can't afford to lose you, especially not when it's just the four of us." He leveled his glare directly at Okita. "That said, Hajime's not going to let you out of his sight from now on, and if either of us see you come within six feet of Chihiro, I'll put _you_ six feet under. Clear?"

Abundantly so, yes; even Okita couldn't wriggle his way out of that one. He nodded once, abruptly, and gazed down at me as if doing so for the last time: hesitantly, I turned my head to stare up into his face. He said nothing, but he didn't need to; everything he could have said, and then some, was visible in his eyes. They seemed dull and hollow, full of regret and frustration, disbelief and betrayal… but as soon as I noticed tenderness as well, he turned away, stooping to pick up and sheathe his sword before striding back in the direction of camp.

Helplessly, I watched him go; as he disappeared into the forest, I buried my face in my knees to stifle another sob. Had I done the right thing? Could he ever forgive me—could I ever forgive myself? So absorbed in my misery was I that I completely forgot about my audience; though I dimly registered approaching footsteps, I nearly cried out in alarm as the commander spoke to me from no more than a few feet away.

"Are you all right, kid?" asked Hijikata, crouching next to me as I raised my head; his tone seemed softer now, as gentle as the Demon ever sounded. To my relief, he did not touch me; he just searched my expression carefully, his eyes concerned and respectful. After the scalding heat of intimacy I'd just experienced with Okita, this cooler distance between myself and Hijikata seemed almost soothing.

I looked up at the commander with an effort and sniffled self-consciously, dropping my gaze. (I might be able to stand looking at him longer than Chizuru, but I still hated letting him see me cry.) "Y-yeah," I managed, my voice cracking. Whether Okita could say the same, or whether I could say the same for my relationship with him, was another story entirely—but Hijikata had only asked about me. Maybe he was only doing so to reassure me that Okita's accusations had been baseless, but his reasoning didn't matter; it was enough that he _had_ asked.

After another pause, Hijikata nodded and sighed and extended his hand; I stared at it dully for a moment before recognizing the invitation and hastily accepting it, allowing him to pull me to my feet. Ordinarily, the feel of his hand on mine might have sent a shock through my body, but my skin seemed strangely numb in the wake of Okita's touch. Hijikata made to let go of me as soon as I was upright again, but upon trying to take the first step on my own, I wobbled, pitching aside; all the strength seemed to have gone from my legs.

The commander caught me with both hands the next moment—one at my shoulder, the other lingering at my waist before he shifted it up to my back. "No, you're not," he told me, and though his voice sounded as annoyed on the surface as one might expect of Hijikata, there was enough genuine concern in his tone that I did not feel the need to apologize for once.

Perhaps moving his hand to my back was born of the respect for my body Okita had not shown; but more likely, it was for the sake of maintaining a more stable position. Either possibility was comforting, however; I took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling my tense muscles begin to relax. Hijikata's sensitivity to my needs after an encounter like I'd just had warmed my heart, and I even managed a watery smile in his direction as we headed back towards camp.

…All the same, I couldn't help but remember the look Okita had given me before he'd turned his back. A last tear slipped down my cheek as it occurred to me that though I'd realized long ago that the world around me was much more vast and complex than any work of fiction could ever portray, I'd never stopped thinking of love as a game.

I just wished I'd realized the consequences of playing it sooner.


End file.
